The Upcycled Wedding

From budget brides to people who want to minimize their impact to the planet, the upcycled wedding is one of the most positive trends we’ve seen emerge in the last several years. After all, in most cases you are having a one day event that doesn’t justify buying everything new. Sure, you could rent your décor, but you’re going to pay a premium for it and add to the overall long list of things your wedding is costing you. And we’ve covered in depth the pros and cons of the need for the big, white, expensive and brand new wedding dress. The big benefit to you is that thousands of weddings happen every day and you are not the first person to have needed two hundred mason jars to put tea lights in. So, you want to base your wedding on upcycling? Here are some tips on where to look for materials, how to do it and what to think about when making the decision.

First, You Need to Start with a Plan

Before you start figuring out what to upcycle or repurpose, you need a good solid plan for your wedding. Make sure you’ve got a guest list already done so that you know the worst case scenario of how many of most items you’ll need. Be set on what your color scheme and visuals will be. There will be a lot of potential upcycle and craft opportunities in front of you and if you’re not sure exactly what you want you’ll quickly get overwhelmed with options. Finally, be sure that you’re set on your budget. Even with using upcycled and recycled materials, you’ll still have some out-of-pocket expenses associated. Know how much you’re willing to spend before you get going. Wedding budgets are notorious for “budget creep.” No matter how responsible you’re being, having set hard lines first will benefit you later.

Second, Take Inventory of What You Have

The best type of upcycling or recycling is when you don’t have to buy anything at all. When it comes to a wedding, that’s not going to be the case for most people. After all, how many tiny decorative vases do you have stockpiled in your basement from other events? The chances are high that the answer to that question is: “Not any at all.” But that doesn’t mean that you don’t already have things in your home left over from other events or experiences that you can use to upcycle for your wedding. Do you already have a lot of printed-out photos of you and your spouse to be? Then you don’t need to get new ones for any type of program, invite or entrance board. You may already have chalkboards in your home that you can use for signage. Get creative. Dig deep, and make a list of everything you already have that can be upcycled into a wedding item.

Next, Hit the “Used Bride” Circuit

As we playfully mentioned at the top of this article, you probably aren’t the first bride ever to need chair sashes or mason jars or favor bags or vases. Most brides who purchase these items for their weddings or create do-it-yourself crafts for their wedding are often looking to either sell the finished products afterwards via a channel or sell the completed pieces themselves. This gives you an opportunity to not only save money but also to use pre-used items and reduce the overall footprint from manufactured “stuff” for your wedding. But where do you find these items for sale? The problem is that there generally isn’t one great resource to resell wedding items that aren’t dresses (though we’re surprised it seems nobody has used that as a business model yet). There are a number of places that you can either look for items or post to see if anybody has something to sell. Try to utilize: your local Craigslist board, online message boards for brides to be (post both in the general area as well as any boards for your local region) and you can even get offline and use your personal network to ask around and see if they know anybody who has what you’re looking for. Also, don’t be shy about visiting your local Goodwill or consignment stores. You never know. You may get lucky and walk in there right on the day that they have exactly what you were looking for.

Don’t Get Trapped in Craft Consumerism

It’s important as you go into this that you don’t confuse upcycling with DIYing. Doing your own crafts for your wedding can decrease your budget (just mentioning “wedding” ensures a huge markup on anything that’s been created specifically for one), but the crafting community has its own deep consumer culture. You can easily end up spending just as much money on items that have just as much of an eco and consumer footprint behind them. If you can’t find everything that you need to do an entirely upcycled wedding, then consider blending your DIY projects between items you’re truly able to upcycle or reuse and craft items that you purchase. At the end of the day, an all-craft wedding likely hasn’t done much more to be planet friendly than a fully-purchased item wedding, and you may not have actually helped your pocketbook all that much either.

Close the Circle: Pass It Along

Of course, the only way upcycled weddings really work is if brides are willing to pass long their items after the wedding (and do it at a reasonable cost). Once your wedding is over, be sure to post on all of the same places where you went to look for reusable or upcycled items that you have items to sell. Chances are that they will get gobbled up extremely quickly. And we’re certainly not figuring you to be able to take care of this immediately after your wedding. We know first-hand how exhausted you’ll be in the weeks after the big event. But resist the urge to pack all of your wedding items away in your basement, never to be seen again. Pay your joy forward by helping another eco-responsible or budget bride find the items that she needs to make her fantasy vision come true.

In most cases, unless your guest list is very small, it will be an unreasonable expectation that you can do your entire wedding using pre-owned or upcycled materials. But you can maximize the amount of upcycling that you do for a planet responsible (and budget-friendly) wedding.

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